Impact of Staff Turnover and Some Advice to Deal With

Impact of Staff Turnover and Some Advice to Deal With

The turnover rate of personnel measures the proportion of personnel leaving a company or organization due to dismissal or resignation for a specific period of time.

To calculate which the rotation index of our company, we have to divide the number of people who have left the company (layoffs and resignations) among the total number of employees that is part of the company.

For example, let’s say that our company has 58 employees, and this year we have three layoffs and six resignations. Our turnover rate would be:

Once the calculation is made, and to know if we have an adequate level of rotation, we should take as a reference the average turnover rate of the companies in our sector, to see if we are going online or if, on the contrary, we are diverted and therefore we should prepare a specific action plan to address this problem.

Why is it important for companies to have this information?

In case of having an above-average turnover rate of personnel, we should identify why, cause it is affecting the business, and also how we can reverse the situation by creating a strategy that allows us to retain the talents.

The high turnover of personnel has direct consequences on the company’s results: being constantly recruiting and training new personnel means having some of our employees, in most cases some of the best workers of the company, to devote a great part of their time to this end, instead of dedicating it to core business, or other issues of the human resources area such as the preparation of internal training or development plans that would allow us to create more competitive teams. Hence, this will mean that during this transfer of information, we also have another of our better employees with a lower productivity than would be usual due to the assignment that is made to train the new partner.

Another great consequence of the rotation is the fact that the talents who leave already have the information of the company’s business, which includes the type of culture, organizational structure, and industry. Moreover, we could not forget that companies work thanks to their teams, each of its members brings knowledge to the company and each one stands out for having different skills. So, every time we lose a worker, we lose his or her knowledge part , we lose talents, that on the other hand it will take us more time to recover again. Also, we will have to wait for the selection of a new partner, who will be trained for a while and who therefore, needs a period of adaptation to be totally autonomous and productive.

Another consequence generated by the loss of talents, is the redistribution of tasks that is done when a worker is leaving, since their tasks happen to be assumed by the rest of the team, at least during the impasse of time since the old worker and until it is totally replaced by a new partner, generating this situation an overload of tasks and again, the consequent drop in productivity.

Once we have reviewed some of the consequences generated by the rotation of personnel within the teams, we will focus on what strategy we could carry out to reduce it.

What can we do to prevent the flight of talent?

In broad strokes, we could say that it is about keeping our teams happy and motivated and this can be done by touching two levers, the salary they receive after finishing the month, and the emotional salary or non-economic incentives.

Salary is a very important part, in the end we work for money, so these should be appropriate to each position. Being on the line of the market price and being a reflection of the effort, skills and knowledge are provided by the workers. In short, it is about investing in the resource that gives the most value to our companies

But it is also increasingly important to offer our employees other non-economic benefits that allow them to combine work with their personal lives better. These will help our workers to feel happier and more congenial. It is as we said before the emotional salary, through which we will get the people of our organization feel cared for and valued.

Furthermore, we must recognize our teams’ aptitudes, and provide them with the information they need to develop their career in the best way possible. To achieve this, we can assess, for example, technical skills, training skills, or more appropriate tools to carry out their tasks if they request, and whenever possible we should discuss the employees’ career paths, to what extent they can progress their profession in the company. By assessing their potentials, we could offer new responsibilities to them, and they could see opportunities for career development in the company.

Another very important point is to take the work environment into account, to encourage the spirit of relevance to the organization and good practices by all individuals in the organization, as well as to make all employees involved in the company’s project and the decisions, encouraging initiative and creativity.

And whenever you can, you have to try to offer benefits to the workers, such as a day care center’s services, restaurant tickets, a free afternoon on your birthday, etc.

In conclusion, the rotation of personnel directly affects the productivity of companies, so it is essential to carry out a strategy to control it. The best way to start is by making a detailed diagnosis through, for example, work climate evaluations and exit evaluations of those employees who cause voluntary leave. With this we will be able to detect the reasons why employees look for other opportunities outside the company, as well as to know what level of motivation and satisfaction they have. If we get motivated and committed teams, we will be able to retain the talent that we have carefully recruited.

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Shackleton Towers provides executive recruiting and training services to a wide range of industries. We have developed the knowledge and skills to deliver the perfect fit between a job seeker and an employer